9 August 2017 Summary

What an evening! Carrie was the extremely efficient Toastmaster and led us through an energetic and fun meeting with the theme ‘empowerment.’

It was a special meeting as we were saying goodbye to Susan Treadgold, a charismatic and popular member since 2009. Susan is moving to San Diego and our loss will be their gain. It was also great to see our members, Barbora, Maria and Esmé, move forward on their competent communication (“CC”) manual.

The first speech (the 7th project in the CC manual with an objective to research your topic) was delivered by Barbora with the title “Tomorrow’s Jobs”. Barbora grabbed our attention from the start by telling us that 65% of our children’s jobs don’t exist today and went on to describe some fascinating jobs in Artificial Intelligence, from ‘Virtual Habitat Designer’ to ‘Digital Cultural Commentator.’

Maria followed with her 3rd speech “Memory”. This was a most helpful presentation of techniques (Concentration, Repetition, and Visualisation) to assist us in remembering people’s names, which was motivated by an unfortunate encounter 10 years ago in Harari.

Esmé then hypnotized us with her description of ‘Tiger-Leaping Gorge,’ the deepest river gorge in the world whilst delivering her 4th speech “I can’t wait to go back”. The objective of this speech was to use language to communicate accurately and vividly, which she did with lots of bubbly charm, enthusiasm and fabulously descriptive language, describing her first visit to China, its street food, stunning scenery and fascinating culture. We fully understand why she “can’t wait to go back”.

Last but definitely not least, there was Susan’s farewell speech “My Hourglass Moment” in which Susan revealed her personal experience of breast cancer and her alternative, holistic treatment of it. We were exposed to exotic visual aids such as frilly, non-underwired bras to highlight the need to minimize heat and maximize oxygen in breast tissue. It was incredibly moving and thought-provoking. [See the photos of the 7 things to avoid and the 10 things to do more of]

Angie continued the theme of empowermentby asking some questions around using Toastmasters to improve our public speaking skills in her table topics session (impromptu speaking),during the second half of the evening. Our participants were Marianna, JT and a guest, Sripriya.

Our evaluators were JT, Rowena, Ailsa, and Helen. Thank you all!

Thank you also to our grammarian Jane for providing the word of the day Empowerment and to our timekeeper Marianna, taking on her first role.

Ailsa rounded off the evening by giving a special toast to Susan, remembering her early days in our club and wishing her well in her future life in California. We all enjoyed drinks and nibbles.

Susan collecting her Best Speech ribbonLet’s not get stuck on the one word “Empower” – there are others we can use tooReminders of the word / theme of the meeting could be found around the roomThings to avoidThings to do more ofMarianna collecting her “First Role” ribbon from Acting President, RowenaBest Table Topic and Best Evaluator awardAilsa delivering the surprise agenda item – “Farewell to Susan”

Jane’s detailed Grammarian’s ReportThe view from the back of the roomOne of our longest standing members with our newest member

VPM, Angie chatting to our guests afterwards about the benefits of joining Toastmasters